By the way, I've moved: my new blog, which magically contains my old blog!

So the other day I stumbled upon the official website of the The World Beard & Moustache Championships, which in two years will be held in my hometown. Reeling with delight, I promptly told everyone I know about how hilarious and great it is. Today I talked to my coworker for like ten minutes straight about this nonexistent beard competition documentary I'll never make. He kept being like "Wow, you're... really excited about this...(?)" Basically here's what I want to know:

- I want to know what their significant others (and children?) feel about this. Are they like, Into Beards into beards? Does Mrs. Schmidbauer just chuckle goodnaturedly and say, "Oh that Gerhart. He sure does love that thing on his face." Do these wives(/husbands? are these guys fascist manly men who frown upon the love that dare not blah blah?) travel with their men to these competitions? What do Beard Wives talk about while their men are, uh, competing?

- Do they generally stick with one style and perfect it, or do they experiment with new and different styles each time? Do they ever get sick of the maintenance and shave it all off? Do they look down on men who give up the bearded lifestyle? One of the coordinators of the last World Championship did not have a beard in his headshot. Did he have to wear a fake beard when he was at the competition, like how fancy restaurants will loan you a jacket and tie?

- Are there bitter rivalries between competitors? Do they ever steal each others' looks? Do they play hilarious camp-style pranks on each other? Bleach in the pomade? NAIR?!

- Are they required to wear ridiculous hats, or is that just a bonus? Do they realize how funny they look? Do they have a sense of humor about it? If somebody says "You look kind of like The Lorax," do they take offense?

These questions must be answered!!!

Boourger King.

So I've suddenly become a projectionist for the second run/art house/non-profit movie theatre in town, which is exciting because it's been a dream of mine for several years now. I did my first show by myself today, with the guy who's been training me just standing on the side while I did my thing. It was terrifying, but nothing melted or broke or got chopped off, and the movie was cute, and it was a great experience.

The movie was Once. It is so charming I could not even stand it. I smiled the whole way through, and giggled, and sighed. Visually, it's quite pretty, and the music is fantastic, and I want the soundtrack. The movie is slow, and there's not much to the story, but it doesn't matter because the characters are great, and the music is beautiful. Go see it.

Last week was The Ten, which I thoroughly enjoyed, because it was made by all sorts of people whose work I had previously loved (basically everyone who was on The State and all their friends). Apparently it was sort of a limited release premiere, which is funny because nobody at the theatre made any mention of it. People also apparently do not like this movie, which I sort of get, because it's totally absurd and gross and irreverent, except wait, why don't people like it? The soundtrack to this movie was likewise fantastic, and after three screenings, there are certain bits of the score that simply will not leave my head. Also certain jokes, which I can't even make reference to in the presence of other people, because nobody else has seen this movie. Tragic.

The Illuminated Ball

Every time I have idle thoughts of moving away from Olympia, something happens like I get called last minute to run sound for The Illuminated Ball. The ball is a fundraiser for the Procession of the Species, which is usually my annual reminder that Olympia is amazing and I want to stay here forever. The Illuminated Ball is like a nighttime Procession. Everyone wears costumes and formalwear adapted to look like the night sky. There are glowing planets, and blinking constellations, and that's just the guests. The performance features birds and boats and meteors all illuminated from within, flying and dancing and rising into the darkness. Words can't do it justice, and neither can pictures, but here are some anyway.

It kind of blows my mind that I get to go to stuff like this and make it work, and then get paid for it. I don't even care that I got home at 3:30 this morning or that my back is sore. It was gorgeous and amazing and I love this town.

Code and cuteness

The kids from the daycare center every once in a while take a field trip across campus to the organic farm, and I saw them today walking across Red Square in a little scattery rainbow line of winter coats and squeaky important voices, and they were so freaking adorable I wanted to eat their toes. I'm pretty sure I was not this cute when I was in the daycare center at UAA. Well, maybe I was, but I have a lot of memories of things like getting stuck in the elevator and pulling the fire alarm and other annoying-in-a-not-cute-way sorts of things.

I switched to the Google beta version of this thing, which is fine, and then I started changing my layout, and now it's all crazy and weird looking and hard to customize. I sort of don't have the time or patience to mess with the raw code though, so it will stay plain for a while, I think.

I am moderately obsessed with Regina Spektor at the moment. This is the music video for her song "Fidelity", also known as "the song that I've been listening to nonstop for about a week." The song makes me really indescribably happy, and the video is beautiful and charming and I love it.

The Workforce

I'm procrastinating writing an essay for French, possibly because it is the last assignment of my undergraduate degree. After this, I will have completed my bachelors of arts, and be working as a full-time temporary employee of the college. Even though I'm 85% sure I'm going to keep taking French, unless I spend my evaluation conference screaming obsenities and slapping my teacher in the face, I'm pretty sure that by this time next week I will have earned all the credits necessary to graduate. This is a little scary. It's earlier than expected, for one. I was not planning to graduate early; I didn't spend all of my time studying to pass my credit-overload of classes, or carefully plan my classes so as to graduate in the least amount of time possible, like some people I know. I even completely flunked out one quarter, AND I took a year off. And yet somehow, here it is.
This job is much easier and much harder than expected. The hard parts are little things, like waking up early (I have to catch a 7:15 bus to get to work in the morning) and having to tell people I'm very sorry, but I don't know how to fix their problem. There's a lot of down time, which is good and bad. At the moment it's good, because I've had a lot of homework I can work on in between people calling me for tech support (and I totally mean homework, and not catching up on Go Fug Yourself and Dinosaur Comics, really, I swear), but once I don't have a ridiculous amount of animating and translating to do, I'm not sure what I'm going to fill that time with.
But I'm really enjoying the job, the parts where there are things to do, and the parts where I do know how to fix the problem. I feel useful. People appreciate me. It's a good feeling.

Epiphanies

The other day this old friend of mine contacted me via MySpace. I haven't talked to her literally in years, but once we were best friends, and we did the whole "how are you how's your life what are you up to these days" exchange, and today when I wrote the 25 cent summary of my life at the moment, I stopped at the end and thought, Now wait. I'm just doing that thing where you exaggerate everything to make your life sound really great when it's actually destroying your soul, but then I reread what I'd written and realized, No, actually, my life is absolutely amazing, and I'm so lucky, and the stuff I'm doing makes me so happy. I just need to manage my time better and then I will spend less of my time crying.

Lately I've been helping shoot a trailer that some friends/coworkers of mine are creating. Today when we started shooting we did this shot that I sort of came up with, and it looked amazing. This whole concept of being good at what I do is really difficult for me, and it's not always true, of course, because I am a human being and I fuck up all the time, like y'do, but the idea that after a week of non-stop work my boss could take me aside and not tell me that I need to knock it off, whatever I'm doing, but instead tell me that I'm doing great and that he's incredibly relieved to be able to rely on my abilities... it really takes some getting used to. I've become accustomed to being frustrated with myself, not being able to get things done, making excuses, getting discouraged, and that I've found something that satisfies me is a welcome change.

When I think about the future, of course I get terrified, because I am twenty-one years old, and almost no one I know is doing what they were doing when they were twenty-one, and I know that I'll probably have fifty existential crises in the next year, and who knows where I'll even be then. I'm getting into the time in my academic career where I should probably start moving toward a path that will allow me to pay rent and buy groceries, and in fact I'm already pretty much on it, but soon I will have to cast off the shackles of academia and all that rot and survive on my own, and that's really scary. I definitely do not feel like I have the knowledge and skills required to get any sort of job anywhere, but since I'm already getting freelancing work, on-the-job experience will not be too hard to come by. I guess. I guess the point is, I'm happy, when I'm not really stressed out and panicky, and that's a good thing.

In a week is the memorial for Marge Brown, who was one of my mentors, and who died this summer of ovarian cancer. Arguably, it is Marge's fault I am where I am today. I wanted to drop out of school for a while to figure stuff out, but instead Marge got me my internship, for which I was supremely underqualified, and at which I obviously thrived. By the time I really got into the rhythm of things she was too sick to be my supervisor and among many other aspects of her death I regret that she didn't get to see me at my most confident and competent, because it was she who started me on my way there. After three months I am still so unbearably sad that she's gone, that when I was asked if I would be the one to videotape the memorial I almost started crying, so I can't even imagine what a basket case I'll be at the event itself. I'm not sure if I'll feel any more closure after the memorial; I already went to her funeral this summer, and it seems like maybe this will be similar except with five times as many people. But possibly it will actually be a celebration of life, not in the we're-not-calling-this-a-funeral-but-really-it-is sort of a way, but in the way that old friends can tell stories and laugh and remember without being desperately unhappy. I hope so.

I miss you, Margie.

Slightly random

Last night I killed dozens of white baby spiders that were being creepycrawly on my ceiling and now I'm fairly certain that they're punishing me from beyond the grave in the form of horrible spider nightmares. I hate spiders. I always wanted to be one of those people who was completely unbothered by bugs, but the truth is that they ick me out and I hate them. And these horrible baby spiders kept dropping down onto my bed or my book or my face and it was gross so I did what any reasonable person would and killed their entire family, or so I thought, because this morning the ceiling was covered again. I discovered this after abruptly waking from a bad dream in which my ceiling and floors were covered with big shiny black grownup versions of the white baby things, and they were skittering toward me and I was terrified, and when I opened my eyes to reassure myself that it had all been a dream, I discovered that once again there were swarms of them directly overhead. I piled blankets on my face so the spiders couldn't get in, and went back to sleep.

I'm thinking about taking the ferry up to Alaska in September, but the logistics are intimidating me. We'll see.

Ok, so I know that by now everyone has made poetry out of their spam emails and some people have grown tired of the subtle art of spam text, but has anyone else noticed that spam sent to Gmail addresses has been really amazing lately? Examples:

This, Mr McDermot said, is Mr Inkster, K. There, Edmund would meet them in timeto catch the boat; and his father would take her home. An elderly workman was seized by a belt, hurled aloft,thrown to the floor, and instantly killed. It was, as you know, before the final decay of the town. At Arbala, everything proceededas in a void; no vestiges of the past were to be seen or inferred.

I have my task, he cried, looking high tothe stars. I found the skeletons of six men near an arsenicwater hole. Clouds hung along the mountaintops, coloured into deeper glory as the sun sank. The prospector halted stolidly and slowly turned back.

Do you think you could come to love me, really love me, Rachel? Ringer, her foot done up in rags, hopped lightly tothe door to greet her. Thats what Im after doin, Miz Blake, onct I git em out-a him. Blake told Lawndis to go back to the house and drink thecoffee that was left.

For the record

I'm a media technician on campus, and last week we had a ridiculous hassle with the college administration. I'm definitely not one of those people whose immediate reaction to everything is to call censorship, but I thought maybe some people might want to know about it.

PART ZERO (the prequel):
As a part of our Graduation planning, we realized that we would have to somehow string our 700' fiber optic cable from a building on one side of our Red Square to the middle of Red Square with the least truck-driving-over and people-walking-on as possible. We decided to hang the cable between some trees over the walkway by the CAB, and in order to a) disguise the wire because it's ugly, b) disguise the wire because we hadn't yet asked permission to hang the wire, and c) make it visible enough that any trucks or large objects would not run into it when traveling under the wire, we also decided to run Tibetan prayer flags along that one overhead portion. We figured that they're pretty, they have a good message of peace and global harmony, and everyone at Evergreen has them anyway, so it's the best possible way we could do this.

PART ONE
I got to work on Monday morning and saw that someone had coincidentally hung a string of Tibetan prayer flags from the clock tower to the tallest tree across Red Square ( a distance of at least 250'). Everyone I talked to was amazed at this beautiful gesture, and impressed by the effort it must have taken to get them up there. By ten o'clock, the college sent maintenance and facilities people to scale the tree and rappel down the clock tower to remove the flags. We all booed the removal.

PART TWO:
Thursday morning, we hung our fiber cable. We put up the prayer flags along with one of the last stretches of fiber, and as we did, people passing asked us, "Are those those flags that were up here earlier?" We told them, "No, these are ours. They're the same kind of flag, but we brought them." At one point this older guy came and asked us what we were doing, and we told him we were hanging fiber for graduation, and he said sort of ominously, "Well, I'm going to have to tell someone about this." Unconcerned, my coworker and I went up to the third floor of the clock tower and were in the process of attaching the fiber to the corner there when we heard a guy saying "Unless you have a letter of authorization from the Vice-President's office, you need to drop that right now."
I, holding the end of the 700' cable, shouted down to my other coworker, who was sort of in charge of this endeavor, "Uh, can you come talk to this guy?" and as Second Coworker climbed the stairs up to where we were, the guy pulled out his badge and said "You need to drop it right now or face prosecution." First Coworker and I were pretty freaked out, and we sort of babbled something about "But it's for Graduation!" and the guy kept telling us to drop it until Second Coworker came up and told the guy that we're media technicians, we have permission, we're hanging fiber optic cable for the video broadcast tomorrow, blah blah. Immediately the cop became a complete teddybear. He radioed in to say that we were media people, and was completely apologetic and nice. He said we had permission and he was very sorry, but he got a call that people were hanging more flags from the clocktower. We were not entirely mollified, having just been threatened with prosecution, but finished hanging the cable and ate bagels under our handywork.

PART THREE:
Here's where it gets a little unclear. Someone from the Graduation Committee, the President's Office, or the Board of Trustees came and told us we had to take the flags down. We asked why. They said it was because the other flags had to be taken down on Monday. We asked why. They said they didn't know, because they actually liked the flags, but the order came from the President's Office somewhere. We asked for an official statement before we take them down. No official statement came, but someone basically told us there was no way we were going to be allowed to keep them up. They also told us that apparently the reason the first ones were taken down was because a Buddhist monk who goes to Evergreen called in to complain that the use of the flags was inappropriate and offensive. I don't buy this for several reasons. 1) How many practicing Buddhist monks can there be who go to/work at Evergreen? I know of one, but there are only 4000 people at the school. Also the one I know isn't actually a monk. 2) What are the odds that this supposed monk was on campus on Monday morning to call in time for the school to call a rock climber to come remove the flags, all before 10 a.m. during Eval Week when classes are not in session? 3) I can't actually speak for any Tibetan people, but my one Tibetan friend confims this: while many Buddhists and Tibetan people are a little uncomfortable with the mindless ubiquity of prayer flags at Evergreen and in hippiedom in general, most I know would probably not object to them strongly enough to request their removal, when the gesture was so clearly a statement of beauty and peace. 4) One person complains, and the thing is taken down? What about when the anti-choice protesters come with their horrifying mutilated fetus posters and sit in Red Square for hours? No one ever does anything about that. Either you allow freedom of expression, or you don't. 5) (and this is the big one) Gregoire mentioned meeting the President of China in her Graduation speech.
Here's what the flags looked like before we took them down:

Note the bureaucrats discussing in the foreground.
The other ridiculousness of Thursday was that because we'd given the excuse of needing some sort of flag to protect the cable from trucks driving through, the prayer flags had to be replaced with some other sort of flag. So the head of the Graduation Commitee took time out of her no doubt insanely busy schedule the day before graduation, to drive into town and buy us new flags. They were multicolored mylar, and they were hideous. When we made the switch I wanted to cry.

PART FOUR: (this is the part that is really important)
Our Governor, Christine Gregoire, was the keynote speaker at Graduation. Some people object to some of her policies. I am quite ignorant in matters of Washington State politics, but apparently there's a bill she supports that makes it more difficult for single mothers to receive welfare, and apparently there's also some racism to this position. I will not pretend to be at all knowlegable about the issue, but the point is, there were a large number of graduates who'd been planning for weeks to protest Gregoire's presence. They'd talked to the various offices you talk to, and the Graduation Committee was anticipating the action. What I was told the day before Graduation was that there would be police guards to make sure that people couldn't go up to hang banners from the clocktower, but if they somehow did get up there, we weren't to film the banner at all. And if people in the crowd were protesting, we were not to focus on them. When I heard that, I was horrified. What was the administration so afraid of? What could be so important that they would censor the only record of the 2006 graduation ceremony? Why would they choose to cut out such an important demonstration of what makes Evergreen Evergreen? Then I thought, "What are they going to do, stand behind me and make sure I don't film this? Yeah, right." I thought that as a joke. A funny joke. But no. There actually was a PR guy from the college standing behind me during Gregoire's entire speech, making sure we didn't broadcast anything untoward. If we ever had a shot ready in which you could read a sign or that focused on a protester, the guy would say "No no no," and we wouldn't take it. It was disgusting. Luckily, two things happened. One was that the one time during the entire ceremony when I accidentally took the wrong shot it happened to be a camera that had a close-up of someone holding a sign. The other was that one time the PR guy left the tent and we really quickly got a shot of the banner before he came back in, saw it, and made us change.
The point of all this is, what has my school become? The fact that these decisions are being made and no one can do anything to stop it is terrible. I was so disgusted during the broadcast, and now no one will ever know what happened that day, because there is absolutely no footage of it. It's appalling. I cannot believe that this happened here. And for anyone who says "Of course it happened here; Evergreen is just like any other public institution, educational or not," I still don't actually believe that. I just think there's a large disconnect between the students and staff, and the administration. I would like to think that the new student government will be able to do something about this, but... Well, anyway. Think positive.

Work and weddings

When I started writing this, I was in my office at 9:30 am on a Saturday trying to get a job. Making a sample reel is somewhat more difficult than writing a resume, I've discovered. You can't really exaggerate or make yourself look better; it's all out there for the viewer to see. I've spent this school year doing documentation for many many very boring campus events, and my reel reflects just that. I've also shot some really excellent speakers (Keith Knight, Dr. Cornel West, Saul Williams, Mayda del Valle), so I'm hoping the subject matter and my fantastically spectacular camerawork (ha!) will outshine the utter lack of fancy editing (there's not much post-production you can do with one-camera shoots). The idea that in a year or less I'll have to obtain employment based solely on the skills I've learned this year is... a little scary.

I went to a wedding reception on Saturday for a guy I don't really know. He's the first person my age whom I've seen actually doing their wedding thing (I've heard about a couple of my high school friends' marriages but haven't attended), and it was equal parts nice and bizarre. I didn't go to the actual ceremony, because it was a strict Mormon family-thing-only, but I went to the reception with a couple of people who know the groom much better than I. It was a little awkward, being the only people with facial piercings and no previous experience in Mormon churches, but it worked out fine when we escaped to the other partition of the gym and played basketball with a bunch of kids.

Yesterday I got to go to Happy Land, which is a magical not-so-secret place in the basement of one of the buildings on campus. People have been going there and leaving things and rearranging things and writing things on the walls for many many (15?) years now. It was everything I'd expected from the tunnels under my high school, which are in reality just sort of dark and asbestosy. But Happy Land is truly a sight to see. I'm worried that if they end up remodeling the building like they're trying to do, Happy Land will be no more.

I'm pretty much consumed by stress at the moment. Everyone at my work is really anxious right now because it’s the last two weeks before our two biggest productions of the year. This means that people are snapping at each other and forgetting to tell people things and sending accusatory emails and doing things twice or three times because they didn’t realize other people had been doing them too. I’m taking this opportunity to lie around reading young adult novels and daydream about what I’m going to do when I get to Alaska in three days. A lot of it will involve things that Katie and I were never able to do before, like sit at the bar in this one restaurant and occasionally cast a blushing glance at the bartender on whom we’ve had an enormous crush since we were fifteen. It is entirely possible that we’ll sit in the garden at our high school at midnight and smoke a clove cigarette (mom, you don’t read this anymore, right?) while wearing lots of eyeliner. We are the epitome of chic now that we are grownups.

Apologies and alcohol

I've not updated in a very very long time. Sorry! I have a few half-completed, never-posted posts, but I haven't had anything terribly important to say. My best friend ever has a blog now, and it's terrifyingly intelligent and politically savvy and you should read it if you care anything about Alaska or the world, but mostly I don't have very much to say other than "I soldered some microphone cords today. I sure do like Buffy the Vampire Slayer." But here goes.

I'm in the last three weeks of my internship in video production at my college. Now is when things go crazy. I'm the technical director and video engineer for our graduation ceremony, and I'm feeling supremely underqualified, but I'm hoping to cram as much knowledge into my head as I possibly can in the time available. Sub-carrier, h-phase, YCbCr. Towards the end, I'll be working 12 hour days. I really do love my job.

I turned twenty-one on Sunday. I completed my pact with my father and managed to avoid all alcohol until the stroke of midnight on the 28th of May, 2006, and then I went to a gay bar and danced the night away. I tried beer. It was all right. Champagne was nicer. Tonight I went to a bar with some friends of mine, and saw approximately 90% of my local acquaintances. I'm not all that into the drinking, but the social aspect of being allowed in is sort of nice. Also that particular bar has a sticker-photo machine, so I'm pretty much sold.

I'm in a period of impermanence at the moment. Most of the people with whom I spend most of my time will be leaving town in a month or less. I'll be moving into a house across town, working where I work now, and plan to spend my free time this summer making movies in the sun. Summers are strange. It's confusing to me that I've had twenty of them and they haven't become less odd yet.

Helping.

Hey, so, if you're like me, you've been sitting around desperately wanting to help with the whole Katrina horror (if you're like me, you also aren't really financially capable of making any sort of meaningful monetary donation). So one option is to go to the People Finder Volunteer site and spend some time doing data entry. It's a site that's trying to compile all the missing/found persons data that's floating around the internet. There's a lot of it to go through, so they need as many people as possible to help out. It took me half an hour to go through one 25-post batch, and those are 25 people whose families now know where to look for them. Every little bit counts!

[end PSA]

Dreams and disaster.

I took a nap today and had my second terrible-apocalyptic-nightmare of the current 24-hour period. I think that the hurricane is finally getting to me. (Last night it was... an earthquake? This time it was some sort of plague). I've had this webcam open in a small window since last night- it belongs to a group of people who've stayed in their New Orleans office since last Sunday to keep their clients websites online. One of the guys has been blogging the whole thing- it's fascinating and scary and inspiring, really. I feel a little weird being such a voyeur, because I haven't actually done anything to help, but on the other hand there isn't really anything that I can do, besides give blood. I should give blood tomorrow, I think.

In scary-in-a-different-way-but-mostly-good news, I've started moving into the new place. Roommate has a bunch of his stuff in (he's had the whole month of August to move the occasional carload down), but I have yet to bring more than my guitar, some kitchen stuff, and a mattress that some friends of mine kindly donated to my cause. But today a bunch of my fambly was visiting and we brought my bike and a rocking chair Aunt A was getting rid of, and my FISH, so I think it's sort of becoming my home. On Thursday my roommate and my friend and I camped out in our living room and had an impromptu sleepover. The plan was to paint our nails and gossip about the boys we have crushes on, but since Roommate and Friend are heterosexual males, and also I couldn't find my nail polish (honestly more of a problem than the previous), we ended up just sleeping. It was lots of fun.

Sushi and serenity

I think I forgot to mention, I really love it here. Even though I'm not sure it's my home anymore, I still feel a familiar comfort just reading the street signs, and I know that somehow I'll always be able to come back.

I went with my family to a conveyor belt sushi place this evening, and while the sushi wasn't overwhelmingly spectacular, the conveyor belt was quite exciting. More importantly, it was great to spend time with Mom and Mom's New(ish) Man and Auntie M and Auntie K before I leave. We went in search of the perfect ice cream, and then played Take Two, with which I am rapidly becoming obsessed. And spending my last night with my friends in our favorite divey diner really was the best end to this trip I can imagine.

I feel like when I go back I should throw away everything I own and dye my hair purple. But in reality it will be more like just one box of stuff and more of a medium brunette. I'm ok with that.

Alaska and ambivalence

(the shift key on my mother's computer is working only sporadically, so bear with me.)

I'm in Alaska in my mother's house, which is strange and nice. i'm only up for an extended weekend before school starts, but i'm glad i got to come for at least a few days.
There's an oddness i notice more strongly each time I visit. i think it's the fact that I'm visiting a place that i used to call home. I've always known that everyone has to come to terms with their own sense of self, but knowing in the abstract is very different from actually attempting the journey. it's an ongoing process. i moved the last of my stuff into boxes and out of my old room. the thing that actually made me cry was glancing through old photos and seeing the faces of friends who've died in the past few years, but really the packing itself was just emotionally draining overall. my room is not my room anymore. in two days even the room in which i'm currently perched will belong to somebody else. it's a big thing.

it seems like not much changes each time i come back, except that sometimes more people are dead, but at the same time the landscape is actually quite different. my mom's house has been remodeled, the streets have changed, there are starbucks on several corners. i don't know what's going on in local politics, i've lost track of my friends. i'm not sure what exactly I want my relationship to be with this town. i suppose that once i decide that, it will be easier to spend time here.

on a more positive (or at least, less confused) note, i finally met Crosby's boy today. he is nice. i spent the evening with her family, who are my favorite family-that-is-not-mine in the world, and we ate chicken and cornbread and i kicked ass at Take two, which i am totally bringing back to Olympia, by the way, and we laughed really hard and I held on to crosby really tight and this shift key is really pissing me off but more importantly I love that family a whole lot. little sister and and middle sister are so big and that is scary and crosby's mom and dad are just the same which is comforting and I really like her boy. i was afraid it would be weird because I am very protective of my Crosby because I love her more than anything in the universe, but he is quiet and goofy and nice and I approve. i wouldn't mind staying in anchorage for a long time if every night was like tonight, with Little sister making everything into three times as many syllables as it needs to be and Middle Sister screeching and father-of-crosby muttering things under his breath and everyone laughing till we can't breathe. I missed it. It was good to have that back.

Babies and belated blogs

Wow, it's been a long time.

This summer I've been living at my father's house with him, my stepmom, and my brand-new brother (born on the 4th of July!), whom for the purposes of this blog I will be calling Beanbag. He's amazingly amazing and I am completely in love. He was born with a congenital cateract, and had to have surgery when he was just a month old, but since they removed his lens and gave him a contact, he's been just fine.
When last I wrote, I was planning to be a Resident Assistant at my college, but since then I've changed my mind and decided to instead live with Seven, one of my roommates from Spring Quarter in an apartment right next to campus. I will either be taking some time off from school and working bar in my dad's restaurant, or else I will be the Video Intern at the Electronic Media Department. I'm turning in my application tomorrow, so we shall see what we shall see.

Life hasn't been too terribly exciting, except for the baby stuff. Mostly I've just been reading a bunch of comics and playing a fair amount of Scrabble. Soon I'll be working behind the scenes on a short film that a friend of mine is producing, and moving into the new apartment, so those things should provide enough excitement to last me at least the month of September. I can't wait to have a kitchen that is all my own. Well, mine and Seven's, anyway. But he doesn't bake anything, so the oven is basically mine. Oh man, I can't wait to decorate! Domesticity is my weak point.

What else... I've been watching Undeclared since it came out on DVD last week, because I've been in love with that show since it was first aired. You should all go out and watch it, because it's great. I'm rereading Cryptonomicon for the sixth time- also highly recommended. I think the last time I read it was when I created this blog, hence the subtitle.

Also, this summer I'm taking an animation class, and my group is almost done with our final project, a 1:30 promo for a local film festival. I think it's going to turn out fairly well. Maybe I'll post it when it's completed.

Rain and rambling.

I think that my schedule these days is pretty much ideal. Mornings when I don't have class are spent eating whatever I baked the day before and watching Star Trek. Afternoons have been sunny, so I lie on the grass in the soccer field and read a book or doodle around on my guitar or play baseball. Some evenings I work at my dad's restaurant, as a host/bus person.
Today was gorgeous, so I took my blanket and my Harry Potter out to the field, but after a few minutes it started to rain, so I escaped back to my living room. It's pouring now, but the sun hasn't stopped shining. This may be my favorite weather in the world.

Last night I was thinking about the haircut I gave myself a few weeks ago, and decided to chop a little more off. Now I look a bit like this (only, y'know, not as damp, usually).

My roommate loaned me a CD called The Ploughman's Lunch, and it's just lovely sweet folkiness. I urge everyone reading this to find it somewhere and listen.

Baseball and birthdays

My roommates and I have been playing baseball lately, because the days are beautiful and it's unthinkable to stay inside. None of them are very good, me least of all, but we have lots of fun. On Thursday I was trying to catch a ball, but it went past my glove and hit me on the leg really hard, and now I have a very impressive bruise on the side of my shin.

I've been asked what I want for my birthday, and I always have trouble thinking of things, but some stuff that it would be nice to have is as follows:
+ parts for my skateboard (I got just the board in like November, and I've never gotten around to getting wheels or trucks or anything, which is hampering my ability to learn)
+ an amp for my electric guitar (nothing fancy, just so I can hear what I'm playing)
+ a case for my elecrtic guitar (hard or soft; just something in which to tote it)
+ an external hard drive
+ gift certificates/cards for groceries (unglamorous, I know, but that's mostly where I spend my money. Top Foods and Safeway are the stores near me.)
+ and of course the usual miscellaneous books, movies, and music

I had a conversation a while ago with a friend of mine, and we determined that we needed to have a Teddy Bear Picnic out in the soccer field on campus, wherein everyone brings their favorite stuffed animal, and we eat tiny cakes with our tea. We both thought it was a brilliant plan, but never got around to organizing it, so now I think that this will be the concept behind my birthday. I think that it will be lovely.

Mum's the word

First of all, happy Mother's Day to all of my various female relatives who read this. I'm currently sitting in my father's restaurant taking family photos for customers to take home. It's fun, if a little boring, and I get free food, so I have no objection.

Requests were made for interesting things about my life, so here's what I can think of...I dyed my hair green a couple of weeks ago, as a part of my costume for the Procession of the Species, which is an annual event in my town. I was a part of Samba OlyWa, a local drumming/dance group, and our whole group was dressed as "a country meadow," which basically just meant that we wore a lot of green. The color is mostly faded now, so it just sort of looks like a bleaching job gone horribly wrong.

Classes going well; I just wrote a really stressful paper that's mostly all done, which is quite the relief. I'm not quite clear on what we're doing for the rest of the quarter, but it's possible we're going to do a 30-mile march at the end of the month.

My roommates are all out of town for the weekend, hanging with their parents and girlfriends, so my place is sort of empty at the moment. I considered doing a massive cleaning project at the apartment, but instead I slept in and then went to a friend's house to watch Harry Potter. I think I made the right decision. The rest of them were playing a drinking game we made up, wherein one takes a drink when any of a predetermined set of cliches is onscreen. Nothing like tipsy geeks for entertainment.

I'm still not sure what I'm doing this summer; I'd like to go to Alaska, but I'd also like to take a class that lasts all summer, so I don't know what exactly I'm going to do about that. We shall see, we shall see...

So, it's been a while. What have you been doing, Sophie?

I'm glad you asked, gentle reader. I've had quite the exciting time since last we spoke. I've been hired as a Resident Assistant for next school year, which is exciting. I couldn't have done it without my family and friends, who supported me and recommended me to the hiring committee, and I am quite grateful for that.

I moved in with the Boys Next Door, and have been living happily here for the past three weeks. So far the only minor issue is that they're all taking evening classes, and I have to be up in the morning. It's not that they're too loud for me to go to sleep, it's more that we have too much fun for me to pay attention to the time, so I end up going to bed late. But I'm making an effort to stop this practice before it becomes habit.

I'm in a really great class called Marching, in which we study the history of marching as an action of protest, discipline, and celebration. It's pretty neat. We've been learning about historical Marches on Washington recently, and gave presentations last week which were broadcast over the college TV station. This was nervewracking to say the least, but when my presentation was over I got to run the cameras for the rest of the day, so it ended up being incredibly fun. My class (or a delegation from my class) is going to be participating in the Rural Organizing Project's Walk for Truth, Justice, and Community this June. I'm pretty sure I'd like to do it, but at the least I'm going to involve myself in the planning committee as my project for the class.

I've started working at my dad's restaurant a couple of times a week. I've been a host and busperson, which is fun. I've never really done that as a regular gig; I've helped out on holdays and other busy times, but it's a pretty different experience on the average weekday.

What else? Hmm. I bought an electric guitar this morning on ebay. It's my first ebay purchase, and I'm a little nervous about it. But the guitar is so very pretty, and I'm sure it will all work out. I'm selling my bass to a friend of mine to fund it, because I have had the bass for three years and played it a total of four times. A guitar, on the other hand, is something that I already have a head start on, so I feel that it's much more likely to get some use.

Carrie

My head is throbbing and my back is sore, but what's important is that last night my friend Carrie died.
I met Carrie in the Alaska Children's Choir when we were 10. We were in the same social group in junior high and high school, and although we weren't close I considered her my friend. She was by turns irritating and insightful, and always brilliant and compassionate, and she had the most amazing singing voice you'll never hear.
Almost exactly a year ago, Carrie went to the ER because she was numb on half of her body. They found tumors on her brain, and they tried to remove them, but they didn't get all of it out. She went to Seattle for radiation, and she stayed there until they said she was about to die. I'd been afraid and avoiding visiting, but I drove up and caught her just as she was about to get on the plane to go back to Alaska. She looked awful. I'm not sure she even recognized me. I gave her a hug, and her wheelchair went through security, and I thought that was the last time I'd ever see her.
She went home and went on a crash juice diet, and her tumor started to shrink. When I got home for summer, she could walk with a cane, and by June she could hold things with her bad side. Her hair had fallen out, and it was scary to see her looking so terrible, but she was getting better, and she was happy. By the fall she was taking a class at the university.
Around New Year's, the tumor got worse again. She flew back down to Seattle, and they did radiation, and I didn't hear anything until about a week ago. Her sister, my friend Christina, said that she was probably pretty close to going. Carrie's old boyfriend from college came up and sang her songs, and her family was around her, and last night she died.
I know that she was comfortable and loved and it went quickly when it started, and I know that Carrie's in heaven. Even if I'm not sure I believe in heaven, I know Carrie's there. But I still hate it. It doesn't help that she was happy. She's still gone forever. She was so good, and now she's gone, and I hate it.

Lost in translation

I watched the entire original Star Wars trilogy yesterday, because it's the end of the quarter and I felt like it. I still have to write my self-evaluation, but other than that the next five days are mine to do with what I please. I predict a lot of lounging in the sun, punctuated with occasional toenail-painting and pie-baking.
I like not having to do anything.

I've discovered that the reason that my Japanese roommate and I have such difficulty communicating is that my speech is way too idiomatic. Today she was making chicken noodle soup from scratch. "Is it good for sickness?" she said.
"Yeah, it's great," I said. Then I tried to explain the concept of "Jewish penicillin", but since she didn't know either of those words it didn't really go over well. I think I need to learn Japanese.

I've started packing up my room... It's making me sad to see the empty walls. Time to paint my toenails.

In with the good air.

I've only been awake for half an hour, but I think that today is going to be a good day. I slept for twelve hours(!), and woke up with a functioning brain, for once. There was real hot water in the shower (this isn't a regular occurrance), and in a couple of hours I will register for next quarter's classes. I'm going to try my best to get into a constitutional law class, because it sounds really amazing, but otherwise I will try for one about the history and organization of protest marches. I chatted with the teacher at the academic fair, and he seems like he'd teach a fascinating class. Then at three I have my interview to be an RA next year. I'm having a minor fashion crisis, but all will be resolved when the time comes. I am taking deep breaths, and the sun is shining, and there are birds and frogs and squirrels making their bird or frog or squirrel noises...
I like today.

Breathe.

So here I am. I've been pretty much consumed with a) homework and b) watching bad 80's TV shows with my next-door neighbors. But here's some stuff that's been going on:

Next Monday, I'm going to a Bob Dylan concert with my dad and stepmom, which is amazingly cool. I saw him in concert a couple of years ago when he was touring with Paul Simon, but you can never see too much Bobby D. Am I wrong?

In a few weeks, I will be going to New York with my mother. I will be able to meet up with my two best friends, too, so I will be able to see the three people I've been missing the most. Not bad for one trip. We will visit my great-great aunt Sophie (for whom I am named), and make our usual pilgrimages (Pearl Paint, Chinatown, all the thrift stores in Chelsea. And maybe some museums and stuff, too). And when I get back, I will be moving out of my apartment to the aforementioned apartment next door. They asked me a while ago whether I wanted to move in with them, and since my room still smells a little funny from the flooding incident, and where I am now is on the main path to the dorms, and it can get pretty loud on weekends (Things Sophie Learned at College, #341: Drunk people like to yell a lot. No, seriously, a LOT.), and also because the guys next door are my friends and I like spending time with them, I said yes. This will be good.

I've been informed that my amazing Uncle Mike has a blog. I've linked to it in the sidebar, but here it is again. He breezed into town last Friday, and we had some family dinners and breakfasts before he had to go back to Chicago on Sunday. I have pictures that I took from Sunday breakfast here (I think that link should work... I'm not used to that site yet.)

Finals are upon me, and I think I'm going to do ok. This was a low-key quarter, which was a good thing after the stress-fest of fall. I'm not yet sure what I'll be taking next quarter, but I went to the Academic Fair today and got some good ideas.

I've been listening a lot to Iron & Wine. Everyone who reads this should go buy their album "Our Endless Numbered Days". It is beyond excellent.

Oh the humanity.

There's a girl sleeping on my couch right now. I don't know anything about her, except her first name, and the fact that she was at a party tonight. I was typing my paper when I heard someone call, "Help me?" I wasn't sure if I'd imagined it, so I opened my window and waited. "Somebody?" she called again, and I spotted her sitting on the pavement under the streetlamp outside my window.
"Are you ok?" I yelled, probably waking up at least one roommate.
"No," she said. "I'm really sick."
I grabbed a coat and told her I was coming down.
My friend Zen was down there when I got to her. We helped her up to my apartment, because she said she didn't know anyone on campus. "I never drink," she said. She was hiding behind her hair. I never saw her face. She apologized when she stumbled on the stairs.
She's sleeping on my couch now, still wearing my coat, with a glass of water and a bowl next to her head. Maybe in the morning I'll see her face. Maybe she'll be gone and I'll never know who she is.

When I told another friend what happened, he said “It was really good of you to help her.” I told him I didn’t think of it as good. It was the only human thing there was to do. I couldn’t watch somebody else suffer and not do anything about it. I don’t know anything about this girl; I don’t know why she didn’t have any friends with her, or why she couldn’t manage to drag herself inside a building where she wouldn’t be freezing, and maybe find a phone. That stuff didn’t matter. The fact was that she needed helping, so I helped her. That doesn’t make me a particularly good person, I don’t think. It just doesn’t make me a really terrible one.

Race, etc.

It's 4 in the morning, and I'm attempting to finish a book for my class tomorrow (today).

I'm reading three books at the moment, and they all have their unique purposes.
Power, Privilege, and Difference is for the class I'm taking to become an RA. It's interesting, but ultimately it's a middle-class white guy talking about racism. And since that's pretty much what I am (minus the guy part) I pretty much know everything he has to say. Plus it's just so "You should be ashamed of who you are! If you're white, you'll always be a racist no matter what! Especially if you think you're not a racist. Because that really means that you are a racist. Don't even try to deny it. You're only friends with people of color because you're trying to prove you're not a racist." It's a little much at times. When I read it, I get so irritated with the apologetic, accusatory tone, I start getting angry with it, and feeling like there aren't really any racial injustices in the world anymore; the author of this book is just a bleeding-heart liberal. And then I think "Oh my god, I'm becoming a Republican! How did this happen?!" and it's very disconcerting.
But then I read my next book, which is The Dream and the Nightmare, which is the most disgustingly racist, classist, sexist piece of propaganda I think I've ever been forced to read. One page of that and I think "Oh thank god I'm still a Democrat." Seriously, the guy is so scary and frothy.
And when I'm tired of being put through the emotional/political wringer, I read You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train, which is fascinating and inspiring and beautiful. Howard Zinn is my hero. I want to be him when I grow up.
And then I pass out on a pile of books for a few hours before class. I like my existence.

At the request of my mother...

I dyed my hair on Friday. (The hair-dying wasn't the request, but photos were.) Here's me before and after. In a bizarre twist of fate, that night Crosby also dyed her hair from red to brown, thousands of miles away, without us discussing it. Anyway, there it is.

I've been spending quite a lot of time playing Uno lately. House rules make the game far more interesting, and also far more terrible and long and awful and hilarious and bad. It's a great homework-avoidance tool.

I went to a meeting today for Code Pink: Women for Peace. It's been a long time since I was involved in a political action group this disorganized. They're very well-meaning, though, so I think I'll stick around. We're going to have a benefit concert thing at my dad's restaurant in March, but we're not yet sure who it's going to benefit. I think that last sentence pretty much sums up the group. It's fun, though. We wear pink, we want to stop the war. These are missions I can get behind.

Oop! I almost forgot. Mine Aunts M and K sent me a Valentine's package with stickers and a book that looks quite lovely. This made my day.

She does exist!

Hmm. I tried the email-posting thing, but it worketh not in this particular instance. Oh well.

I haven't been updating, because... um... I don't know. I feel like I shouldn't do it unless I have interesting things to say, but I think I'm giving up on that idea because it's been weeks.

I'm in an interesting class this quarter. My professor was one of the founding faculty at my college, so he has lots of fascinating stories about the history of the school, among other topics (he was media guy for the Eugene McCarthy campaign in Florida, which is pretty darn cool, and got death threats from public officials. Also, he spent a while in Australia and thus knows Cockney rhyming slang, which they speak there. And once he saw Elvis in concert.) Our seminars go off on strange tangents all the time, but they're interesting tangents and I learn a lot just by listening, so I don't mind.
Soon I will be beginning my research for my end-of-quarter symposium presentation, which at the moment involves women's reproductive rights in the 1990s. I anticipate lots of depressing research, but less than if I had gone with rape (my original topic).

I made zucchini bread yesterday in my brand new baking dish. It was delicious.

Crafty crafty!

I'm testing out this email post thing. Let's see if it works.

Here's some stuff I've made lately, as worn by my long-suffering
model/muse, Iphigenia:

Cookies n' chemo

Since my mother now reads this blog, I feel obligated to inform her that her worst fears about my going away to college have finally come true: Yes, I did in fact eat cookies for dinner tonight. They were delicious, if slightly cakey. I need to learn not to second-guess the recipe. Just because the dough seems too goopy does not mean that more flour is needed.

Food that I need to make in the next few days so that today's groceries will not go to waste:
-Pumpkin Pie
-Zucchini Bread
-Spaghetti Squash
-Pad Thai
-Something With Quite A Lot Of Spinach In It

My friend and as-of-this-afternoon roommate Sonnet is going in on Friday to get a malignant tumor removed from her ovary. It's interesting how her response has informed my own. It wasn't until today when somebody said "Holy shit, [Sonnet], you have cancer!" that it really occurred to me how serious it really is. Because this whole time her attitude has been "Well, it's in a really early stage, and after the surgery I'm just going to need a couple rounds of chemo, and it will be fine," it never occurred to me that the really important words in that sentence are not just and a couple and early, they're surgery and chemo. Or maybe it actually is the other way around; it just never occurs to us to think of it that way. Anyway, we're just assuming everything's going to be ok. And I think it will. But a couple of prayers couldn't hurt.

Geekery

So I was going to attempt to keep my crazy geeky side off of this blog, but I figure I should embrace that side of myself and share it with the world. So, here are some upcoming movies I've gotten really excited about lately...

Fantastic 4: To paraphrase my friend Lex, cheese potential is dangerously high. Just the taglines are enough to make me cringe, but if it doesn't take itself too seriously the movie could be... uh... not-sucky? Maybe? But Jessica Alba is very un-hooker-like, so suck on that, John Byrne.

Sin City: This was one of the first graphic novels I ever read, and I can't wait to see what they do with it. The art is the most interesting part of the book, and it looks like they're staying really true to the original material. The fact that Frank Miller is directing a segment, and has been involved with the whole creative process is a confidence booster. And as much as I'm not really a Tarantino fan, this movie really is his style, so it's probably cool that he's doing a segment. (Yes, Jessica Alba does look like a hooker in this one, but that's because SHE PLAYS A HOOKER. Stripper. Whatever. Byrne's still an idiot.)

Batman Begins: Eeeeee. After the embarassment that was the last few movies in the franchise, this one had better be super awesome. It should be more character-driven, obviously, since it's an origin story, and this is of the good. Batman's such a fascinating character, and I really hope they explore his darkness and disturbing morality issues (Yeah, yeah, I just read DKR again, so I'm sort of stuck on it. My point stands.) rather than falling back on silly quips (as much as I love Batman: The Movie) and rubber nipples (no, I did not love Batman and Robin, except in that "Oh god, it's so horrible I don't know whether to laugh or gouge out my eyes!" sort of way). Plus, killer cast. This has my highest expectation of the three.

There's of course other stuff, like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Revenge of the Sith (aka Star Wars episode 3), Hitchhiker's Guide, and Chronicles of Narnia, but I'll get to those at a later date. Maybe.

Ok, I think I've gotten all of my fangirling out of my system. Oh, wait, not quite. I think I'm going to go to the Seattle Comic Con on Feb 5th with my friend Raj, but we're always open to more company. So let me know if you're interested.

Four more years, sadly.

Tonight Crosby is driving to DC to protest the inauguration. I have a couple of other friends who are going, too.
It makes me really sad that I'm not going to be there. Instead I'll be in class, learning about things that are important and that I'm interested in, working toward a degree which I will then use on my quest to better the world, but I won't be making a difference tomorrow. I won't even be participating in the campus-wide walkout, because my class doesn't start until it's over.
There are so many horrible things going on in the world, and I feel like I should be taking an active role in ending them. I'm going to school, and of course that's important, but since I don't know what I want to do, I feel like I'm not really working toward my "save the world" goal. I feel like maybe I could be doing more important things, helping make more immediate changes, rather than saying I'll do it when I'm done with school. I want to go be a part of something. But I'm not really sure how to do that.
I'm not sure why I'm so set on protesting, anyway. Last spring my mom came down to visit me, and we went to a march against the war. We talked about how frustrating it is that her mom protested the same things 50 years ago that she protested 25 years ago that I'm protesting today. And it is frustrating. It's unbelieveable that our leaders can't understand something as simple as "STOP KILLING PEOPLE. NO REALLY. YOU CAN DO THIS."
Ok, I'll be honest. I've been in dozens of protests. Really I just want to get arrested. Aunt A and I had this plan when the war first started, to get arrested together (actually, it was the whole family, but mostly us). We wanted it on record. We never got around to it (mostly because it's impossible to get arrested for protesting in this town, unless you start beating people to death with their own yardsigns, which sort of defeats the purpose of nonviolence). Soon.

No other darky knows her/No one only me

Today as I was walking through our Campus Activities Building, I saw a crazy old guy with a guitar, and for some reason told him he should come to the open mic tonight. Sadly he had an animal rights meeting to attend at the same time, but we ended up having a bizarre mostly one-sided conversation about how college is too expensive, and how "The Yellow Rose of Texas" is about a light-skinned African American woman. He graced me with a few bars of the original lyrics, which are hilariously offensive, and then told me that the point of sophomore year is to "make it" with lots of football players. I thanked him for his advice and wished him well. It was easily the most surreal experience I've had in at least a week.

Why are you you?

I went to the local UU fellowship this morning to light a candle for Joe. I sat in the back and listened, and it was just like in Anchorage except I didn't know anyone, so it was weird. But they have the same hymnals and the same opening song, and the same "hmm" that everyone always murmurs when something meaningful is said, so it was sort of comforting. Maybe next week I'll have a nametag. Maybe then I'll feel at home.

Death. Again.

I saw Joe a week ago. No, two. No, the night before Christmas. Maybe not. I don't know. Not very long ago. He was wearing his kilt. People would always say "Hey, who's the guy in the kilt?" and we'd always know to say, "Oh, that's just Joe." I hadn't seen him in a very long time, but at the party he and Karla talked to me the same way they always talked to me, like I was a grownup, like I mattered. They never bothered to make kid jokes or speak slowly.

We used to go to their house for Easter. I used to wear my partiest party dress and search for eggs in the snow. Jordan and Connor and Lizzie and Isaac and I would pile on to the tree hammock until it creaked and groaned and cracked but never fell. We'd look for the places in the snow where the egg dye had melted away into puddles of color. We'd have to wait for the chocolate to thaw before we ate it.

Every Bastille Day, Joe wore a black dress. Eventually Connor wore one too, and sometimes he'd steal my top hat and wear that as well. He was always much taller than me (not always. not when we were four. but since then, maybe). We wore black and white only, and the grown-up drank fizzy things and we played guessing games I can't remember anymore, except that my answer was Pierre Curie. I wore white gloves and then later black satin gloves that didn't show grass stains as well but got caught on my earrings a lot.

I feel like... I don't know. Is it weirder having just seen him? Is it weirder that I hadn't seen him in years, and he was never a big part of my life, in fact he was pretty small, but he was always there, and I thouht he always would be? Is it weirder because he's not dead [yet] and I'm still thinking hey, Carrie was supposed to die but it's been nine months and Joe could still pull through, right? Right? And then won't I feel silly. The next time I'll see him maybe it will be Bastille Day, and I'll say "God, you wouldn't believe how much I cried when I thought you were about to be dead." And he'll chuckle and drink beer from a green bottle in his black dress and say "Well, Sophie, I'm flattered."

Sophie And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day(s)

So in case you've tried to call me recently, or have had an online conversation in which I seemed distracted or even rude, I've had one of those insanely stressful bits. But I think it's all over now. My apologies.

I got home to my dorm room on Sunday to find my room flooded. My carpet was soaked, as was everything sitting on it (including my accordion, whose strap is now covered in fuzzy mold spots). No, wait, this wasn't the beginning. The beginning was when I got home and discovered I had no keys. So the on-duty RA came and opened my room (which was locked for some reason) and I went in and saw the carpet.
Maintenance came and gave me a dehumidifier, but it didn't really do anything, plus the room smelled awful, plus they had to take apart my heater so my room was freezing. I slept in my roommate's room that night. The maintenance people said they'd bring a wet-vac the next day, but when I got home from class everything was still sopping, so I had to sleep on the couch. So I called this morning and had to move all of my crap out of my room, because then they came and got all the water up, and now it doesn't stink nearly as much, and my heater works. (Other crappiness involved me thinking I'd left my textbook on the plane, but I found it when I was moving stuff back in. Also, my keys were in Alaska, and my mom is sending them.) So, happy ending.

Also, I love my class.

MOVIES I PLAN TO WATCH SOON:
Spice World
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Grosse Pointe Blank
Batman (original Adam West version)

My buddy Neil

Neil Gaiman said the best New Year's thing:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't to forget make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

It's better than anything I could come up with. Bonne année!

Death

Last New Year's Eve was really awful. One of my friends died (the second in as many months), and I spent the whole evening sobbing in the dark wanting the world to end. I think this year will sort of have to be an improvement.

It doesn't seem like a whole year has passed since a year ago. Since Kronowitz died. (death, dying, dead, to die. No, I don't know what it means, either.) I feel like he's still at college, like maybe if I went to my old high school at the end of the year, he'd be there visiting, too. But he won't, because he's gone forever, and that's really weird and scary and I forget sometimes but then it hits me all of a sudden. There have been others (AliceCaseyStephenPaul) but I think the only other person this happens with is Jessie, but with her it's been four and a half years, and that's forever. I can't remember either of their faces except as still photographs. I can't remember their voices, but I remember what they said. Sometimes I miss them so much it hurts, even though they'd been gone for so long already before they were Gone.

I think I'm partially thinking about death because of Kronowitz, but partially because of the tsunami. There are millions of people who all of a sudden know people who are dead now, and I know how they feel, but I can't comprehend hundreds of thousands so I have to think about the people I know, because death is death is death. When I cry I'm not sure whether I'm crying for them or for them, but I don't think it really matters, because we're all just people.

I don't know where people go, or if they even go somewhere, but if they do, I hope they're happy there.
(I miss [you] a whole lot.)

Things to do in the next year:

1. I'd like to start going to temple more regularly, and check out the UU in Oly. Every once in a while I realize that I can feel my spiritual self withering, and it's really not a good feeling. I just feel more like myself when I have a religious experience in which to participate. Plus, as of this afternoon I have a UU buddy. No more excuses.
2. I'd like to make use of our gym facilities more than once in a quarter, and in this way maybe get into not quite so pathetic shape (like, being able to run for any amount of time without wanting to die would be nice).
3. Getting full credit in my classes is a must, and not just because they'll kick me out of school if I don't. There's this thing we call self-respect.
4. Re-learn how to read knitting patterns, and actually make things.
5. Become proficient at an instrument. Probably guitar, because I have a head start on that one.

I think these are doable. Yes?

Random not very Christmas-y photo of the day:

My cat and my dog. Notice the homicidal glint in Chester's eye. My mother and I decided today (by which I mean that I said and my mom warily agreed) that in addition to being Orson Welles reincarnated, my cat is sort of a Bond villain. Or possibly a mafia boss, or really anyone who could feasibly nod to a lackey to indicate that someone needs to be "taken care of".

Christmas was excellent. Coolest gift was undoubtedly the iPod, which was a joint present from the entire maternal side of my family. Other awesomeness included scarf handmade by Aunt, Paul Simon songbook, and futuristic silicone potholder/trivet. Oh, and chocolate. So much chocolate.

Happy winter, all you people out there in intarwebbland!

Ahahahahaha! Ahahahaha! Aahahaha! BEWARE!!!!! Yrs sincerely, The Opera Ghost.

Today I saw The Phantom of the Opera with Lemon and her mother. (I'm trying out this pseudonym thing, to see how it feels. Is it working?) I used to listen to the original cast recording obsessively at a young age, and seeing the thing in all its ostentatious glory really was a nostalgic experience. I have small complaints, like how the Phantom's cape swirling was just silly, and how if it were a really GOOD production it would have made me cry, and how Christine's only two facial expressions were chin-wobble and ecstatic, but otherwise I was very impressed. The (quite negative) review I read admitted that the reviewer didn't like the musical at all, which I thought sort of negated his whole criticism.

Later we went to the mall, because who doesn't love a good hour of overstimulation at the end of the day? My aim was to buy presents for other people, but instead I bought myself some things to put in my ears. I bought them from Hot Topic. Shh! Don't tell anyone. The cashier there was terrifyingly cheerful. I also almost bought an adorable dress (not at Hot Topic) that only made me look like a sausage a little bit.
While I was sitting in Nordstroms spilling perfume on myself, an older, slightly inebriated man came up to me with a sculpture he'd made of a man fishing in a kayak. He showed it to me, and I said, "That's very nice."
"Just like you," he said. His smile was huge and didn't contain many teeth. "You're beautiful."
I thanked him, and he wandered away to show someone else. As we left, a Nordstroms staffer was ushering the man and his friend out the door. It really was a nice carving.

The Pastry Sessions, and the Aging Process of the Surrogate Sibling

Recording was dismal. As soon as I get a copy, I'll post some songs so everyone can shower me with false compliments and temporarily boost my self-image. It really was terrible. Every time I started to sound good, my throat would close up and I'd make this disgusting gurgling hacking sound. True, we'll be able to just use these as scratch tracks and rerecord everything individually, but that plan only works if my respiratory system decides to start cooperating. In other Pastries news, Our Guitar Player is well on his way to growing an Unfortunate Moustache. I'm debating with myself whether or not an intervention is needed.

Today V and her Little Sister and I went to see Finding Neverland, where I cried like a fucking woman. Little Sister is getting into that dangerously-close-to-grown-up stage, by which I mean she's much taller than me. No, no, seriously, she's terribly mature, and although that's a bit unnerving I now feel as though I can swear around her without feeling insanely guilty. This is a big step.

K and I had the best thing today. We were standing in the entrance to Title Wave (local used bookstore), and K asked, "Where's your mom?" to which I immediately and matter-of-factly replied "She's dead." K responded without an ounce of contrition, "Well, then, I'm sorry I asked."
This exchange caused a woman to chuckle as she walked past us out the door, and I was in the middle of thinking "It's fun to make strangers laugh," when her teenaged son said quite loudly "I wish MY mom was dead!" I made a loud and ungraceful noise of laughter, and as the kid left the building he shouted "Merry Christmas!" at us, and then we laughed so hard I coughed up a lung (LITERALLY! No, not literally at all. But that would have been impressive, no?). It was beautiful.
I think this probably lost quite a bit in the transcription. Oh well. It made my day.

closer, lungs, knack.

V and I went to see Closer today. Hum. Excellent acting, but incredibly unpleasant. Basically, it's horrible people doing horrible things to each other, over and over again, with no resolution or redemption. Which is sort of like life, I guess, except for the part where I don't really think that. I hate that this movie made me think that that was true.

It's very possible that I'm allergic to Anchorage. Since I've been here, my lungs have decided not to work. My voice is all gravelly and I have a cough that sounds like a really old car starting to start... Tomorrow the band is going to go record some songs, and I'm going to sound like crap. Lovely.

While looking for Christmas music I stumbled upon my dusty old copy of "Get the Knack," and spent the afternoon dancing in my living room. I really seriously truly madly deeply need a turntable in Washington. I may have to steal the one in the living room, and smuggle it on the plane with me. Not like my mom ever plays records anyway; when I got here the same Siouxie and the Banshees album was sitting in it right where I'd left it four months earlier.

Iron Man, Mr Sensitive, and me.

I've discovered that I feel more like myself when I'm at home, with the people I know. Or even if I don't know them very well, I feel like I know who I am. At Evergreen, it's hard to tell who I am and how this "me" person acts, but when I'm at my old high school everything seems familiar. Odd. I think I might like me better here. At Evergreen I'm never sure what to say, so I don't say anything, or I say something awkward and unfunny, and everyone tries not to look. I think it's because I don't really know anyone there. I know their stories, and I know how their lives have happened to them, but I don't really know them. In Anchorage I don't necessarily have to hear a person's stories before I know how to act. I think. Maybe. I don't know.

On a different note entirely, witness this X-Statix insanity! Man. It's amazing, isn't it? Seriously, go read it. Bwahahaha.

I hate you, barbeque.

Our Guitar Player makes the best dinner conversation. Topics included the logistics of being raped by Care Bears, and how he used to root around on his carpet in desperate pursuit of cocaine, and try to get small animals stoned. Also, I figured out that his new speech patterns are identical to those of his Woman, which is sort of sweet.

My mother and I went to a terrible barbeque place to hear Our Banjo Player play his mandolin. I ate some terrible cowflesh, while Our Guitar Player ate the 5 Meat Plate, or "meat salad," as he called it (we identified turkey, chicken, beef, and pork, but the fifth remained disturbingly unnameable). I went home and fell asleep, only to be woken by my stomach stabbing me with tiny sharp knives. So I've sort of been trying not to puke for the past three hours, and distracting myself by reading about how Dominic Monaghan is quite the homosexual, and how anyone who says otherwise is in denial. I think I'll become a vegetarian.

I've been listening to a mix lately that's mostly Cat Stevens, Joy Division, and A Tribe Called Quest. It blends suprisingly well.

Should I dye my hair dark? Not crazy omgimsogoth dark, just closer to my natural colour.

Anbidiað eow her mid þam assum sume hwile.

Why I am not like normal people:
I'm sitting here waiting to go home. I think, "Hey, I have a couple hours to kill. Why don't I learn Old English?" So I've been sitting here mangling the story of Abraham and Isaac. I think maybe I should pick up a copy of Beowulf over break. *sigh* Or maybe not.

Also on the linguistics front, here's a thing
that relates to a several days old conversation with Z and J. In case you were still interested.

This is what I miss in Alaska.

Today a friend of my father, whose film version could quite easily be portrayed by Fred Willard, told me that once a family is in the restaurant business, there's no way to leave it. Well, what he actually said was "There's ketchup in your blood, and there's no way to get it out!" Which I found a little disturbing and a lot funny, and so tried not to catch my dad's eye, because I knew that we'd both crack up. But then the guy said "You can try as hard as you want, but you just can't quit." And then I whispered something to my dad like "Man, that ketchup-heroin is a bitch to kick," and we both started giggling, and even though it wasn't all that funny, we just couldn't stop, and I had to run to the restroom to escape.

In 24 hours EXACTLY, I will be home in Anchorage. I will sleep on my terrifically uncomfortable bed, and my stinky dog will come snuffle on my feet, and maybejustmaybe there will be snow... We will light candles for the last three nights of Hanukkah, and on Friday we will sing folk songs and eat brownies. I will see my friends I haven't seen in four months, and we will eat stomach-annihilating tuna melts at Leroy's. Soon enough I will start missing my Evergreen friends, and I'm sure there will be stupid Alaskan drama, because there always is. Hopefully no one will kill themselves this time, though. That wasn't fun. It's never fun.
On New Year's I will hold a sparkler and think about kissing someone, and probably fall asleep curled around a best friend or two. And then it will be time to come home to the place I've lived for a year and a half... It seems funny to call Olympia home, but I suppose it really is now.

Tchaikovsky, you old so-and-so. How the hell have you been?

I went to the Nutcracker today for the first time in years. My family went every year when I was small, and I have vague memories of dressing in my poofiest, most Christmasy dresses and snow boots (dress-up has a different meaning in Alaska than in other places), climbing to the mezzanine of the Performing Arts Center, and wishing I were a ballerina. This was the first time I'd gone since I was younger than all of the performers, and it was an odd experience. As could probably be expected in most small towns, the stage was smaller, the dancers less polished, the music prerecorded. These didn't necessarily detract from the show, but it was definitely different than I remember. Anyway, it was nice to return to an old tradition, albeit in a different town, with a different parent.

I have no idea if I'll keep updating this, but I'm getting tired of LiveJournal, so maybe I'll switch over.